A recording of a key meeting between Barack Obama, David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel and Robert Gibbs was recently revealed. Most of the conversation revolves around the selection of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State.

Barack Obama: Kerry? I couldn't stand having Kerry.

David Axelrod: Don't worry, it's not Kerry.

Flush from the success of their mostly news-free coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign, the major news networks have directed anchors and correspondents to refrain from traditional news reporting and focus on what they do best -- glitz, opinion, "happy talk," sarcasm and stating the obvious.

"Newspapers are dying and...

Mea culpa mea maxima culpa! Last week, I wrote this HuffPost post about all the good reasons I thought Rahm Emanuel should not take the job of White House Chief of Staff. Actually, there was only one reason -- it would mean giving up on his goal of...

In what observers say is the shortest "honeymoon" between the public and a new Administration, dissatisfaction with the Obama Administration began before it was even elected. Twenty-four hours before polls opened, 62% of the electorate said they "hadn't seen any results" from the Obama Administration and 74% said they were...

When I first met Rahm Emanuel, he was a dancer. He also worked at the campus pub, where as I recall he made a pretty decent cheeseburger.

We were both students at Sarah Lawrence College in the mid 1970s, where we each took political science courses and dabbled...

In dramatic testimony today, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan acknowledged that he had caused the current financial meltdown.

"I messed up," the venerable sage told Congress. "Oops."

Greenspan, who is married to the also venerable (but strangely youthful looking) Andrea Mitchell, said that "a bunch of rich guys"...

I predict a fascinating story in the Washington Post foreshadows Barack Obama's choice as Secretary of State.  Coming on the same day the paper endorsed Obama, this bit of hagiography contains a description of how Obama deferred to Richard Nixon's Favorite Mayor (look it up) on...

Senator Barack Obama, whose "politics of hope" has put him within reach of the presidency, announced a stunning new strategy for the final weeks of campaigning.

With a veto-proof majority within reach in the Senate, and a 100-plus margin possible in the House, party leaders are focusing on what one...

All day I've been accepting congratulations (well, mostly from myself) about my eerie prediction about Sarah Palin's performance in the debate. On the Monday before the debate on Wednesday, I wrote of Gov. Palin's surprising proficiency in foreign and domestic policy.

"Gov. Palin's surprising performance," I wrote, "began...

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, stunned observers by clearly winning her debate with Senator Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee.

Gov. Palin's surprising performance began with the first question, "How will Uyghur nationalism affect the future of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement?" Gov. Palin responded with a...

In a stunning announcement, Republicans acknowledged today that they were in fact the party of political corruption.

"There's no point in denying it," said Tom DeLay, the newly appointed Grand Old Poo Bah of the GOP. "We think corruption, like confession, is good for the soul. And confessing to corruption...

John McCain's campaign announced today that doctors at the University of Arizona successfully performed surgery on Senator McCain that will allow him to simultaneously say contradictory things, instead of having to wait months or years to reverse himself, as is current practice.

While researchers have long been studying the

Apple has a web-only new ad in heavy rotation that uses the conceit of writing an op-ed as a hook for the Mac versus PC message.

It shows the PC guy telling the Mac guy he's in the middle of writing an op-ed, and then he literally is...

I knew this was going to be hard. All those kids around here who act like we're going to beat McCain walking away have their heads in the clouds. Memo to self: don't do what Clinton did and give too many people too good jobs just because they worked on...

As of this writing, before Sarah Palin's speech Wednesday night, it is already clear what her message will be. Just read this Washington Post account, which begins:

Sen. John McCain's top campaign strategist accused the news media Tuesday of being "on a mission to destroy" Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin...

The networks' convention coverage can be so mind-numbingly tedious that viewers are concocting their own strategies for staying awake. Some keep bowls of ping-pong balls by their TV chairs, ready to pelt the screen whenever noxious presences like Joe Lieberman, Mitt Romney or Laura Ingraham appear. Others play drinking games,...

Washington Post columnist Jeffrey Birnbaum has his panties in a twist again about the practice of public policy advocates employing professional writers to help them draft newspaper op-eds. As a writer who specializes in just that niche I have an objection to his objection, and you should too.

Media Notes from All Over (somewhat belatedly)

First, about that New Yorker cover: to quote Steve Martin, comedy isn't pretty. As a satire practitioner myself, I have to ask: who's going to define what's acceptable and what isn't? It's a conundrum as old as Lenny Bruce, whose "black humor"...

The otherwise spellbinding New York Times expose of Rep. Charles Rangel's abuse of New York's system of rent-stabilized apartments, contains this Intriguing Offhand Remark:

"Whether it's an elected official or not, no one should have four apartments, especially when one is being used as an office," said Michael McKee,...

As I've previously written, it's not the cost of campaigns that's out of control, it's the mark-up. The greed and egotism of political consultants can be a drag on democracy, and a distraction from the business of winning elections. There's something wrong when a campaign's consultants and strategists get...